My Morning After: Better Night For Trey Lance & Assorted Draft Prospects In Vegas.
Looking for clues on what this '24 Cowboys roster will be by next week and beyond.
First, I want to apologize for the delay in getting this published. Between taking my wife to a concert and taking my son to Stillwater, it has been a busy time since Saturday night. That said, if the outcome of the game had been an important event in DFW sports, I vow that I would have still found a way to discuss it with you. Since it was merely a showcase for young players to perform and the outcome only matters to very young fans and gamblers, I think our normal Monday morning slot is reasonably acceptable in August. Regardless, I continue to believe that timeliness here at SturmStack is important—just perhaps not as important for preseason game 2.
Now, on to our story:
The Cowboys' win over the Raiders on Saturday night did feature some interesting performances worth discussing, and I do appreciate the general progress of getting this team ready to play. As you know if you read this, I am not someone who expects the Cowboys to be awful this year. I like many aspects of this roster and believe there are a lot of good football players and coaches here. Yes, the self-sabotage of contract chaos is the giant cloud that looms over the organization (as usual), but I would also remind folks that if you are a homegrown Dallas Cowboy (as most of the organization is), then dealing with and ignoring the external noise about all of this (as I wave my arms in every direction possible) is second nature. You get used to it. Like a Dallas summer heatwave or another brutal Wisconsin winter, you sort of start adapting because you know no other way.
Once again, the Cowboys definitely out-scratched their opponent as a team that sat nearly every single player on the roster who had a job secured and a few years of service:
Did Not Play
CB 2 J.Lewis, WR 3 B.Cooks, QB 4 D.Prescott, S 6 Do.Wilson, CB 7 T.Diggs, WR 9 K.Turpin, LB 11 M.Parsons, LB 13 D.Overshown, RB 15 E.Elliott, LB 18 D.Clark, DB 20 S.Redwine, RB 23 R.Dowdle, CB 26 D.Bland, S 28 M.Hooker, CB 41 C.Carson, LB 50 E.Kendricks, DT 58 M.Smith, T 62 N.Thomas, T 64 E.Bostick, G 70 Z.Martin, G 71 C.Edoga, OL 73 T.Smith, T 78 T.Steele, WR 85 D.Durden, TE 87 J.Ferguson, TE 89 P.Hendershot, DE 90 D.Lawrence, DT 97 O.Odighizuwa
I realize some of the names above have nagging health issues, but 28 scratches is a lot!
I am not here to say that is a horrible idea because it is probably not worth the risk to get these guys in some game action, but the Cowboys are really leaning into the idea that there is zero reason for preseason games other than television opportunities and ticket sales. When you field a team that probably and are not playing a single offensive or defensive starter who was in the league even in 2022, it seems these are barely worth watching for most fans.
The league has to move past these occasions. But, for now, we see what we can see from the 2023-24 draft classes, look at the fringe roster veterans trying to make this team, and evaluate individuals to the best of our ability. My twitter friend Jon Ledyard said it best on Saturday as he visited with a Steelers fan:
Preseason is about evaluating players, not teams.
Exactly. It will soon shift to evaluating teams, but for about 10 more days, we just need to gather more information on some of these guys who probably won’t play much or are members of the 2023 and 2024 draft classes and need to prove their worth.
Against that backdrop, here are the interesting things that I would love to visit about today in our review:
Trey Lance certainly took a big step forward and certainly made us squint to see what he can do when things are right.
The running game - particularly with our new toys Tyler Guyton and Cooper Beebe - is going to have a chance to be really fun this year. And, about that short kid from Kansas State…
The defensive pieces we did see from 2024 draft are most interesting and exciting as Marshawn Kneeland and Marist Liufau both popped on the tape.
So, let’s get down to business on these fronts: